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It is often said that perception is more important than reality. That can be especially true in the realm of business where one bad customer service experience gone viral can make even the most client-driven organization seem insensitive to customer needs. While you can’t always plan for these issues, you can take steps now to be ready if it happens.
Know How Your Company is Currently Perceived. What do people currently think of your company? One of the simplest ways you can find this out is by performing an online search of your company name and of the names of your C-level management. While your company website and social media profiles will likely come up first, you may also find reviews on sites like Yelp. Pay attention to how your organization is being perceived and make plans to change that perception, if necessary.
Keep Monitoring. This step is important as many companies check their media reputation once, like the results and don’t check again until a PR nightmare emerges. Media changes all the time, so it’s important that you monitor on a regular basis. If you don’t have the capacity to do it in-house, seek out web monitoring solutions that will evaluate your company across traditional, online and consumer-generated media. Specialists will be able to help you make sense of the data, maximize PR opportunities and also identify threats that you can mitigate before they turn into a full-fledged crisis.
